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Search results for: “site/human rights”
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A little-known election is limiting your free expression rights
You might not have noticed it, but since June 4th there has been an election going on in British Columbia – and legislation that governs that election severely limits what people can say about the issues relating to that election (and how they can say it) until the election is completed…
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December 2004: Waste Not, Want Not
One of our most precious resources flushed down the drain Nearly a century ago, when Dr. F. H. King visited China, Japan and Korea, he found that the “fertilizer” used by their farmers to produce bountiful crops was human excrement. In his 1911 book about Asian agriculture, Farmers of Forty…
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Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Consultations
Evaluating the costs and benefits of participation in this U.S.-led and U.S.-designed project. Download 111.8 KB5 pages Between March 25 and May 9, the federal government consulted the public on Canada’s participation in a U.S.-led trade negotiation called the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). The hemispheric scope of APEP…
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October 2004: Nortel Implicated in Disastrous Liquidation of Columbia’s Telecom
Nortel Networks, Canada’s largest high-tech corporation, has helped bring about the liquidation of TELECOM, Colombia’s biggest telecommunications company, and the likely privatization of its successor. Brampton-based Nortel has assets of U.S.$15.8 billion, 37,000 employees and a presence in 150 countries. Plummeting global demand for telecommunications equipment and poor management have…
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Financialization of housing must be confronted
Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press January 12, 2023 Government housing policy preferences are based on values, the most fundamental being the extent to which housing is viewed as a right, or as a commodity. From a rights value base, housing is a social good — a home and…
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BC forest bill urgently in need of a rewrite
It wasn’t so long ago that the British Columbia government was investing lots of political capital in striking a more productive “new relationship” with First Nations. Which makes it all the more disturbing that in the midst of the very short upcoming legislative session the provincial government intends to introduce…
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BC Budget 2021: Stay-the-course budget misses the mark on key areas of urgency outside health
The BC government tabled a surprisingly stay-the-course budget today, making some improvements on the margins but missing the opportunity to shift BC towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy. While it appropriately includes large sums of time-limited spending relating to the pandemic (and indeed BC has led other provinces on…
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Swimming against the tide
The challenge of higher interest rates and high household debt The run-up of interest rates since March, led by the Bank of Canada in a bid to tame inflation, represents a substantial economic shock, one that is now pushing the country towards a recession. The bank’s overnight, or policy, interest…
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A Dam Troublesome Exception: Progress Energy’s dams should not be exempted from environmental review
I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company…
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A progressive macroeconomic response to the coronavirus crisis in British Columbia
While much of the world remains under strict lockdown and we have yet to determine the full extent of the already-unprecedented economic crisis caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, it is not too early to start thinking about the way out of the crisis. So many people have seen their…
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Is another Charter challenge on BC labour rights waiting in the wings?
While the BC government mulls over the Supreme Court’s recent landmark decision that Bill 29 is unconstitutional (because it infringes on health care workers’ right to collective bargaining), it should also consider the constitutionality of another piece of labour legislation passed in 2002. Although not yet challenged before the courts,…
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Imbalance in residential tenancy rights enforcement in BC
Yesterday some media outlets reported that the Residential Tenancy Branch has conditionally waived the first (and to my knowledge only) administrative penalty it has issued. BC’s Residential Tenancy Act was amended in 2006 to allow the Branch to issue administrative penalties, essentially monetary fines, against landlords or tenants that contravene…
Edna Winti